It's the time of year when more serious, and certainly more seriously opinionated listeners than me tell you what you should have been listening to all year. Well, that's not what I'm doing here. Rather, I'm simply listing 50 albums that have given me pleasure this year, and in several cases a lot of pleasure. A few things to note before diving into the list...
- Despite the fact that some of my favourite live music moments of the year have been metal shows (Meshuggah! Tool! Animals as Leaders!) only one metal album has made the list, weirdly. I dunno, it just doesn't feel like it's been a defining year for metal releases. But feel free to argue (and make some welcome recommendations!)
- The list is a lot less guitar-y than you might expect of me. In fact, it's arguably way more piano-y. I think that's at least in part because was listening to so much piano music while prepping and composing my two first piano pieces, Johnson & Johnson and A Prayer, Lightly Offered.
- You'll notice a disproportionate amount of John Zorn in here. Some decades ago no-one who knew me would have been surprised at that, as I never stopped wanging on about him (I wrote about how seeing John Zorn's Naked City back in the late 80s pretty much changed my life as part of my Master's programme). However, over the years my ardent admiration hasn't exactly waned, but it's definitely, er, drifted. Partly that was an issue of access - it was hard even for a financially reckless record buyer like me to keep up with Zorn's output when it was only available in physical formats. But the migration of the Tzadik catalogue to Spotify has changed all of that (although to be clear, I'm still buying Tzadik CDs by the handful!) There are many problems with Spotify and at some point I might get around to addressing these, but I'm sorry, it's still an incredible resource.
- The attentive reader will note that there are a lot of women composers of various stripes on the list. To be clear, this is not me in some fit of virtue-signalling, which is a vanishingly unlikely prospect. It's just that I went down something of a rabbit hole back in March, researching and compiling a "Women in Modern Music" playlist to celebrate International Women's Day. And I've stayed down the rabbit hole: the original playlist ran to 100 pieces of music by women working in contemporary classical, jazz, free improvisation, sound art and out-rock, and is now up to 150.
- If I had to pick just one album from the list it would be Rafael Toral's Spectral Evolution, which is quite exquisite. If you want to hear about how Toral made the record (which went through no fewer than 50 mixes!), I recommend Samuel Andreyev's excellent conversation with him, in which he talks in some depth about the compositional and recording process.
- Some hat tips! I've mentioned all of these sources before, but once again, I'm indebted to the following for fantastic recommendations: Ted Gioia's substack; Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone and Gilles Peterson, both on on BBC 6Music; and from BBC Radio 3, Record Review, The New Music Show, Late Junction and The Early Music Show. And of course thanks to all the friends and family members who've made recommendations across the year, especially Marc Jaffrey, Frank Hopkins, Steve Morgan and Nick Reynolds: your recommendations might not have made the list below (although Frank does feature on it!) but they've surely informed my "2024 Listening" playlist, which runs to a whopping 110 pieces of music clocking in at just under 108 hours.
- And of course thanks to Sarah for her endless patience with the almost constant sonic ambience!
Samuel Andreyev - In Glow of Like Seclusion
J.S. Bach - Preludes, Inventions, Sinfonias, perf. Mahan Esfahani
J.S. Bach - The English Suites, perf. Zhu Xiao-Mei
Blood Incantation - Absolute Elsewhere
Surya Botofasina/Nate Mercereau/Carlos Niño - Subtle Movements
The Bug - Machines I-V
William Byrd - The Great Service and English Anthems, perf. Alamire
Tim Brady - Imagine Many Guitars
Benjamin Britten - Violin Concertos, perf. Baiba Skide
Laura Cannell - Earthlore
Laura Cannell - The Rituals of Hildegard Reimagined
Loren Connors & Alan Licht - The Blue Hour
Beatrice Dillon - Seven Reorganisations, perf. Explore Ensemble
DKAPZ - Rule by Monsters
Elephant9/Terje Rypdal - Catching Fire
Graham Fitkin - Loosening
Dai Fujikura - Wavering World
Mabe Fratti - Sentir Que No Sabes
Frisell, Cyrille, Downes - Breaking the Shell
The Gesualdo Six - Queen of Hearts: Laments & Songs of Regret for Queens Terrestrial & Celestial
Bára Gísladóttir - Orchestral Works
George Frideric Handel - Theodora, perf. Arcangelo
Catherine Christer Hennix - Further Selections from the Electric Harpsichord
Frank Hopkins - Echoes of Tomorrow EP
Julian Lage - Speak to Me
Chris Lawrence - Kenny Wheeler: Some Gnu Ones
Emilie Cecilia LeBel - Landscapes of Memory
Brad Mehldau - Aprés Fauré
Brad Mehldau - After Bach II
Pat Metheny - MoonDial
Ennio Morricone - Crime and Dissonance
The Necks - Bleed
Rachel Podger/Brecon Baroque - The Muses Restor'd
Hania Rani - Nostalgia - Live
Alfred Schnittke - Film Music Vol 6
Franz Schubert - Wintereisse, perf. Rachel Fenlon
Brandon Seabrook - Object of Unknown Function
Shackleton & Six Organs of Admittance - Jinxed by Being
Richard Skelton - the old thrawing crux
Sun Ra - Lanquidity (Reissue)
Laetitia Sonami - Éliane Radigue - A Song for Two Mothers/Occam IX
Rafael Toral - Spectral Evolution
Leslie Uyeda - The Sex Life of Vegetables
Freya Waley-Cohen - Spell Book
Patricia Wolf - The Secret Life of Birds
John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ Vol. 12 - The Bosch Requiem
John Zorn - The Hermetic Organ Vol 13 - Biennale Musica Venezia
John Zorn - Lamentations, perf. Lage, Riley, Frisell
John Zorn - Her Melodious Lay, perf. Lage/Riley
John Zorn - Hannigan Sings Zorn, Volume 2
Comments